


Faith, Or Loss Thereof

by Revenant



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 1 000 words, Angst, Canon - TV, Canon Compliant, Gen, One Shot, episode-related, season five
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-13
Updated: 2010-06-13
Packaged: 2017-10-10 02:46:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Revenant/pseuds/Revenant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things could have gone a different way, but they didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Faith, Or Loss Thereof

**Author's Note:**

> After _Dark Side of the Moon_ I couldn't help but think about how Sam's heaven is Dean's hell. How after everything he's come through, Dean really got reminded again about a truth from S1, that if things hadn't become as messed-up as they had, Sam would still be in law school and engaged to Jessica, regardless of what Dean wanted or needed. So I decided to ruminate on Dean's angst.

\-----------------------------------------  
_It could have happened like this…_  
\-----------------------------------------

Dean Winchester stands awkwardly, an intruder in a foreign world, and hides his nerves behind a broad grin, throws his brother off the scent by making a shameless pass at the bemused blond who stands, half-frowning half-smiling but clearly with eyes only for the man Sam's become. It's a moment that could go either way, and Dean takes the chance, figures he's come this far already, "Dad's on a hunting trip," his eyes drifting away from familiar hazel before he forces them back, "and he hasn't been home in a few days."

The silence stretches, slow and interminable, and then Sam shifts in that awkward way that Dean knows is his kid brother fighting the impulse to move, to pace-out his agitation or, god forbid, to pull Dean into an ungainly hug. "Jess," Sam says, "I have to go."

"Okay." She says. "When will you be back?"

Dean takes a slow breath. "I don't know." He lets it out in a whoosh.

Later, when Sam's guilty and grieving, looking for answers in all the wrong places, Dean drops to a crouch and shares his own philosophy, "I mean, our family's screwed to hell, maybe we can help some others. Makes things a little bit more bearable."

Sam lowers his head but when he looks up there's an ebb in the darkness that has haunted his eyes since they left Palo Alto and Dean starts to feel a little less guilty for rushing back into his brother's life so fast that he knocked the foundations right out from under it. "And I'll tell you what else helps," he adds, "Killing as many evil sons-of-bitches as I possibly can." It's not an apology but it's as close as he'll ever come, and Sam smiles a little and nods and Dean starts to think that it's a start, that maybe they can be brothers again, the way they used to be.

\-------------------------------------  
_It doesn't happen like that._  
\--------------------------------------

The fire roars and whistles and Sam sobs and stares at the flames, every part of him straining though he is standing perfectly still. Dean stays close, one hand on his brother's arm because all he can hear is a voice echoing in his head, _'Take your brother outside as fast as you can'_. He's thanking every deity he doesn't believe in for the solid presence of his little brother, safe and unharmed, and beside him Sam watches the life he'd always dreamed of go up in fire.

\--------------------------------  
_It happens like this…_  
\--------------------------------

Dean sells his soul for one year of life and his brother safe and alive instead of pierced-through and cold. He doesn't think it's a bad deal, not even when he's lying on the ground covered in gore and broken, with his own blood gurgling in his lungs, his muscles racked with violent spasms and the light leaching out of the world, snarls and growls filling his ears as everything else just fades away. He'd do it again in a heartbeat.

He spends forty years in hell before he's dragged up and out. Claws his way out of his own grave only to lie sputtering, filthy and alone in a field under the hissing sun with two pieces of dead wood slapped together in the form of a cross. He walks for hours before he finds a gas station and he thinks he should probably be listening to the birds chirruping all around him and the cicadas humming, but all he feels is the ache in his feet, the scorching kiss of the sun on his skin and the way his lungs seem to burn, burn, burn.

He makes a point of not counting the hours, the days, it takes before he's standing in a garish motel hallway and waiting for Sam to answer his knock. Braces himself for an embarrassing display of emotion, tells himself he'll suffer through Sam's inevitable touchy-feely song and dance.

When Sam steps into his view the ache in Dean's chest chokes him a little and then it simply disappears. Dean's pulled into a tight hug he tries to pretend he's merely enduring for his kid brother's benefit, and when the dust settles Dean's still waiting for the water works, but all Sam does is look at him with squinted eyes and ask, "What was it like? Hell?"

Dean wants to shatter into a million pieces or throw his bag at Sam's head, scratch at him and yell and scream, _'It's hell! It's hell, you son of a bitch. Don't stand there so casually and ask me to describe it! You'll never understand. You can't ever.'_ Instead he meets his brother's eyes and says, "I don't remember" and he thinks that if he repeats it enough maybe it will come true.

Later, when he's standing there watching his brother press his mouth to a demon's gashed wrist and drink and drink until there's blood on his face and on his neck, like a messy baby, like when he was a toddler and couldn't understand the spoon was supposed to go in his mouth, Dean thinks that he should have known. He should have seen it in that moment in the motel when Sam had turned like a beast coiled to spring and thought only about hell; it wasn't just his little brother anymore there was something else, dark and menacing growing and spreading inside. If only Dean had been paying more attention, he might have been able to help Sam before it had gotten as far as it had, that anything he does now is too little too late. It doesn't stop him from trying.

\----------------------------  
_It happened like this…_  
\----------------------------

Dean's little brother stood in a motel room beside a rumpled bed covered in his own blood and took Dean's last bowl of cereal and offered a cheap prize in return, "You and me. We'll find another way." Years of resenting and rebelling swallowed-up in a moment of necessity, as if his offer could make it all better when time after time he'd turned his back and walked away and kept the memories close like hidden treasures.

This time Dean's the one who walks away.


End file.
